


everything must go.

by lexorcist



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And I'm only a little sorry, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Billy Plays Detective, Crimes & Criminals, Family Drama, Gen, Heavy Angst, I don't know what else to tag this as, I've Been Watching Too Much Forensic Files, Law Enforcement, among other things, and this is what happened
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22222072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexorcist/pseuds/lexorcist
Summary: What if Billy's mother didn't leave him? What if she disappeared- without a trace, no clues left behind? What if Billy went searching for answers? And what if he got them? Featuring a gaggle of teenage detectives, lots of 80s hair metal, and a dark family history. [AU]. [Possible implied Billy/Steve, Billy/Nancy, Billy/Heather - mostly platonic].
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	1. a cabinet record player.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the thing: I like true crime and murder mysteries and thrillers, and I watch a lot of Forensic Files before bed. And the Hargrove family fits the bill. I think you catch my drift. So, join me on this ride, will you? It's gonna be real.....weird.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: Obviously, this subject matter is going to get pretty dark. I don't know exactly how graphic things will get, but I wanted to cover my basis with the Archive Warnings. There will be mentions and depictions of domestic abuse, child abuse, and violent crimes. This will all be handled with the utmost sensitivity. 
> 
> I'm drawing from my podcast binges, true crime documentaries, and my criminology & criminal law classes, etc and writing in the style of a modern thriller. And that's all my disclaimers. Alrighty, let's go.

_**June 14, 1985** _ **.**

It starts with a note.

Billy is emptying the trash, a bi-weekly chore which he remembers to handle _most_ of the time. The house is empty. Susan is away for the weekend- some kind of "girls trip" with her sisters, something she'd been talking about for weeks. His father is at work- or the bar, if he had decided to cut out early, as he sometimes does on Friday afternoons. Max had taken her skateboard to the Wheelers'. Billy is alone. There is a party at Carol's tonight, but it doesn't start for another few hours. Billy does not need to pick up his date until 7:00pm, and it is only five o'clock. Bored of his weights, he fills the house with the new Ratt ( _Invasion of Your Privacy_ , the fresh cassette purchased yesterday and looped on repeat ever since Billy left the record store) and sets about his work. He empties the wastebasket from his own bedroom into a kitchen garbage bag, then collects from the bin in the bathroom. He passes through the kitchen, collecting scrapped catalogues and junk mail on his way to the trash can, and then he sweeps through the house to gather any stray scraps left around. Spent cigarette butts. Crumpled beer cans. Balled up sheets of paper. A wad of papers sits untouched on the coffee table; a common spot for Neil Hargrove to abandon just about anything once he got a few beers deep. This pile, it seems, is made up of creased gas station receipts and overdue bill notices.

A similar pile sits on top of some forgotten records beside the turntable across the room. Billy flattens them with his fist, then grabs the records to right them, mumbling about warping vinyl as he bends to stuff them back onto their shelf. As he does this, a folded piece of paper slips out from one of the record sleeves. Billy bends down to swipe it, prepared to crumple it up like the others until-

 _1975_.

Ten years too old.

But there it is, plain as day, written on the bent corner of a notebook page in spidery pencil scrawl. One-Nine-Seven-Five. Billy smooths out the sheet. His thumb smudges the lead just slightly, dragging gray streaks toward the yellowing corner of the paper, but he can still make out the loop of a 'J" and the long tail of a lowercase "Y". _July 1975_. Billy recognizes the handwriting. He has seen it before, on birthday cards and school permission slips. 

He blinks and he is eight years old. He is sitting at the kitchen table with a notebook of wide-ruled lines open in front of him. There are voices behind him, two of them tangoing together, a man and a woman, Neil Hargrove and-

"I can't fucking believe you. I can't _fucking_ believe this, Leigh."

"Would you calm down? I'm trying to have a conversation with you."

"Is this not a goddamn conversation?!" 

His mother appears in the doorway. Billy looks at her, wants to get her attention, but she has her back to him. Her skirt sweeps around her legs. She is barefoot and her hair is pulled back. She leans against the doorframe and Neil, a bundle of raw and wild energy, paces the length of the short entry hall. Into the living room, back to the door, into the living room, back to the door. His shadow drags long across the worn hardwood floor. 

"You're being impossible," his mother says.

" _I'm_ being impossible?" Neil shouts. "Me? You're out of your fucking mind!"

"Stop swearing," his mother says. Her voice is almost a whisper. 

"Don't tell me how to fucking talk in my own fucking house!" 

"Billy," his mother says suddenly, and Billy's head snaps up. "Go inside, Billy," she tells him. It's a funny phrase of hers. He is, of course, inside, doing homework at the round kitchen table. But when his mother says _go inside_ she really means _go to your room_. She means _this isn't for you to hear_. She means _get out of here_. And Billy listens. He always listens. He closes his book and tucks it under his arm. He sneaks shyly past his mother, keeps his head down as he goes around his father, can hear Neil's booming voice fire up the moment he shuts his bedroom door. 

Now, Billy unfolds the paper. The same wide-ruled lines of his memories stare up at him. His mother's delicate handwriting is dwarfed by the clunky blue lines. The letters slant more than he remembers; they were written quickly, he thinks- in a rush, with great haste, her hand trying to move as fast as her mind must have been. She wrote: _We both know this has been a long time coming_. There is something else written after that, but she had scribbled it out and then tried to erase it. The result was a great big blotch in the center of the page. She skipped a few lines, and then wrote: _I won't go without him_. There are eraser marks beneath the words, thinning the paper beneath them and dragging on well past them, a few pink rubber strings still clinging to the page. Billy wonders what the first draft had said. Another line is skipped, and then: _Last night was the last straw. We can't_ _stay here anymore_.

A flash, and he is eight years old again. It is months later but the yelling is still the same. This time it comes at night. Billy is beneath the covers and he pulls them all the way up over his head when he hears his father's murmured shouting. His mother's voice is smaller, weaker. She has gotten quieter as the months have dragged on. Billy peeks at the alarm clock perched beside his bed. It is three o'clock in the morning. He is not supposed to be awake. When he turns toward the door, he sees his parents' shadows flit beneath it. The lights are on in the living room. They have not gone to bed. Billy can't hear what they're saying, but he thinks his mother is crying. He watches the minutes tick on and on, until three o'clock becomes three-thirty and then four. He hears the front door open and shut. He hears his mother sigh.

Slowly, quietly, Billy gets out of bed. He pads on bare feet into the living room. 

His mother is standing by the record player. She always calls it a Victrola, even though it's actually a Kenwood. She is tugging a record free from its sleeve when Billy says, "Mom?" and makes her jump. Her breath catches her throat and her hand flutters up to her chest, but she smiles when she sees him.

"Billy," she says, and Billy thinks she sounds relieved. "You scared me."

Her face is red, Billy realizes. Red from crying, but a deeper red, too. 

"Did he hit you again?" Billy asks. His mother's hand reaches up to her cheek, where the redness lifts up on her skin and looks painful and hot. She breathes in, then drops her hand and shakes her head.

"What are you doing up?" she asks him. Before Billy can answer, she says, "Come here."

Billy listens. She sets the record on the turntable and guides his small hand to the needle. 

"You're on the wrong side," Billy says, because the label on the record says _Side Two_ but he has not heard any music playing to suggest she's listened through _Side One_. She laughs a little and she ruffles his hair.

"Maybe," she says. "But I don't want to wait." 

With his mother's help, Billy guides the needle in place. His mother wraps her arms around his middle and pulls him with her when she sits on the armchair beside the record player. She settles him on her lap and he leans back against her chest. She tucks his head beneath her chin and begins to hum when the music starts: " _Just yesterday morning they let me know you're gone_..."

Now, Billy has tucked the note into the pocket of his jeans. He is kneeling on the floor, the trash forgotten, and he pulls out the record that the note had fallen out of. The jacket is bent at the corners, yellowed at the edges: James Taylor, Sweet Baby James. His mother's record. 

Why had it been out? His father did not listen to James Taylor. He had complained whenever Billy's mother put it on, had begged her for something else, some real classics. ("This will be a classic," his mother had always said, "if you give it time.", but Neil Hargrove didn't have the time to give). Had Neil been the one to pull it out? Billy wracks his brain, trying to remember who he had last seen rifling through the family's slim record collection. Max's tastes run more modern. Susan plays the radio more than the battered old Kenwood. Billy can't remember the last time he'd gone for vinyls himself. 

Billy sits back on his heels. He tugs the record from its sleeve. The label, too, it yellowing and is peeling up in places. The record was beloved, and has certainly seen better days - better nights than the one back in 1975, when Billy heard his mother's heartbeat ease as the music played, had heard her voice vibrate through her chest and hum softly from her throat. " _I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend_ ," she'd sang, and when she did she squeezed him so tight it made him laugh, made them both laugh. Billy stands now. He sets the record on the turntable, the second side first, just like his mother had. He switches on the speakers and places the needle gently into a groove. There is a small pop- stylus touching vinyl -then a few seconds of silence before the song starts. Billy sits cross-legged on the floor, the note in his hands, and he traces the gentle slopes of his mother's handwriting as the music plays. Without thinking, without even noticing what he's doing, he sings along softly: " _But I always thought I'd see you again._ "

* * *

The house is a wreck.

This is the only way Max can describe it. She drops her skateboard by the door and calls, "Billy?"

In the living room, the turntable is on. Its speakers compete with Billy's boombox: James Taylor versus Ratt, a real battle of the decades. There is no meshing the two. The clash in a raucous, chaotic cacophony that hurts Max's ears. "What the shit," she murmurs. The record player is closer, so she turns it off first. There is a trembling warble as the needle lifts free from the record and Max eases it back onto its cradle. "Billy?" Max calls again. She is looking down at the floor, where a sampling of old record sleeves lay separate from their jackets. She bends down to gather them up: Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix. She returns them each to the shelf and tells the seemingly-empty house, "I'm home."

There is a garbage bag beside the mess of the records. Max steps over it and calls, "Billy?" 

She wanders deeper into the house, down the hall and past her own bedroom. The sounds of Ratt get louder as she makes her way toward Billy's room. His door is open. Max peeks warily inside. There is an overturned cardboard box on the floor, its contents spilling across the carpet. Old cassettes. Tee shirts that Billy had long-outgrown. A tin of surfboard wax. Old magazines, the torn up pages poking out at all the wrong angles. Billy himself is perched on his bed, unaware of Max's presence. He is holding a piece of paper, his brow furrowed intensely as he reads it. The boombox is perched in its usual spot by the door, and Max nudges the volume knob down, but this does not grab his attention either. His unrelenting focus is almost scary. "Billy," Max says, quick and loud. He does not startle, but he looks up. He seems...dazed, Max thinks. It's the best word she can come up with. He doesn't say anything. He only stares at her. "Did a bomb go off?" she asks, opening her arms to the mess in the room. This snaps Billy out of whatever strange trance he'd been in.

"Get out," he says flatly.

"Neil's gonna kill you," Max says, and she thinks she actually sees Billy bristle.

"Get out," he repeats. Max doesn't budge.

"You left the garbage in the living room," she says.

"Max," Billy nearly growls. Max steps toward him.

"What are you reading?" she asks. Billy pulls away, like a child defending something he has deemed Top Secret. He even sets the paper he'd been reading on the bed, pushing it behind him and holding it firmly down with his hand. 

"Get out," he says.

"Fine," Max sighs. When she leaves, she shuts the door behind her. She returns to the living room and she continues to tidy things up, partly because there is nothing else to do and partly because she really does think that Neil will kill Billy- or come damn close to it -if he finds the house a mess. She drags the garbage outside and pulls the cans to the curb. She finishes straightening the records on their shelf. When she is trying to squeeze the very last one into place, she sees a stray paper poking out of the top. The paper won't fold down, and with it sticking out she can't get the record onto the shelf. She tugs the paper free: it is an envelope, sealed shut, with what feels like a Hallmark card inside. _Leigh Hargrove_ is printed neatly on the front, along with a California address that Max herself had briefly inhabited when her mother had first married Billy's father. In the top left-hand corner is another name: Margaret Boland. 


	2. sweet dreams and flying machines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some general clarifications so that this chapter makes more sense:
> 
> We are working in a canon divergent AU where...  
> (1) Billy and Heather have an established close friendship.  
> (2) El and Max have established their friendship pre-S3.  
> (3) El still has her powers, but all her danger ended after S2. The Russians aren't in Hawkins, and Hawkins Lab is no longer a threat, leaving El able to safely do normal kid things like going out with her friends without Hopper losing his mind.
> 
> Think of this as something of an alternate, Billy-centric season three. That is all.

_**June 15, 1985.** _

The card sits on Max's nightstand through the night. She does not open it. A few times she touches the seal, teasing at the paper flap, pricking at it with a fingernail, but she never pops it open. She wants to ask Billy about it. She had tried to. After she'd finished setting the living room right, she went back down the hall to present him with the card, but he was still reading the note she'd found him with. She had wanted to ask him about that, too, but she knew that it was a bad idea. He is rarely in the mood to field a little sister's questions. Last night, he had seemed particularly wound up. Max didn't think she should push any buttons. She went into room. A few hours later, when she thought it might be safe, she poked her head out. Billy's bedroom door had been closed. Max retreated back into her own room. She laid on her bed. She stared at the unopened card. 

_Leigh Hargrove  
152 Beacon Street  
San Diego, CA 92101_

The stamp in the right-hand corner had a bird on it; a red cardinal, its beak pointed up, its talons wrapped tight around a half-sketched branch, it's wings in the process of opening or closing depending on how you wanted to see them. This part of the card had been easy to decipher: Max remembered the little house on Beacon Street, with its weathered hardwood floors and creaky stairs. There was always sand on the rug, even when no one had gone to the beach. There were light-colored squares on the wall where old pictures used to hang, quickly joined by more when Neil and Susan bought a starter home of there own just a few neighborhoods over. In the move, Max had found a box of the photographs she thought must have hung in those empty spaces. In each of them was a pretty blonde woman, perpetually smiling. In some of them she stood with Neil; in others, she held an infant in her arms - and slowly, as Max sifted through the photographs, that boy grew into Billy. The photographs stunted him at around ten years old, the same age Billy had been when he and Max first met. It was not difficult to determine that the woman- Leigh Hargrove, Max now knew - was his mother. 

It is the other name that gave Max pause. That drifted in her mind all night long. 

_Margaret Boland_ is written in a tight, elegant script in the far left corner of the pink envelope. Her address was in San Clemente. Max wondered- wonders still -who she was. Did she still live in California? Would Billy recognize her name? 

In the morning, Billy bangs on her door, barking, "Move it." 

It is a Saturday. He had promised to drive her to arcade. Max peers out her window. Neil's car is not there. Billy wants to leave before it is. 

Max dresses quickly. She stuffs a few thinks into a backpack: some comic books she had promised to lend to El, her walkie. She walks past the card three times before she swipes it off her nightstand and tucks it into the front pocket of her bag. She slings the straps over her shoulders and opens her door just as Billy is about to strike it again. His fist hangs in the air. "What?" she asks. He only grunts, and turns his back on her. When he does, she sees a folded piece of lined paper poking out of his jacket pocket. The note he had been reading last night, still with him. 

She follows Billy to the car. Wordless, he starts the engine. The radio blares to life; Metallica, Max thinks, though she cannot quite place the song. She thinks about the records she had put away last night, about how the one spinning on the turntable clashes so awfully with Billy's normal music. She opens her mouth to ask him about it, but snaps it shut when she sees the tight way his jaw in set, the tension in his fingers around the steering wheel. He does not want to talk. 

And he doesn't talk. He doesn't say a word to her until the Camaro jerks to a stop outside the Palace Arcade. He asks, "Do you need a ride home?"

This means, _You better not_. Max knows him well enough to know this, and she gives the right answer. "I can get a ride."

"Good," Billy says. Max grabs for the door, but stops before she opens it. She looks back at Billy. He does not look at her, but when her gaze lingers too long, he says, "What?" 

"Are you coming home tonight?" Max asks. 

Billy considers this longer than Max thought he would. "I don't know," he says eventually. 

Max lingers a few moments longer, and then she says, "Okay." before slipping out of the car. 

* * *

When Billy was a child, he had bad dreams. 

He could never quite predict when they would strike. He could go a month without a single shadow passed over his subconscious only to be attacked by a week-long onslaught that felt, to his young mind, endless. When he was very small, he would tip-toe, trembling, into his parents room. He would crawl up onto their large bed and nestle between them. His father was always annoyed at the disturbance, but his mother would not let him turn Billy away. She would wrap him up in her arms and hold him against middle. He would fall asleep to the sound of her heartbeat, the dreams chased way by her soft touch, her warm embrace. 

When Neil had decided that Billy was too old for such antics, her mother would leave the bedroom doors open each night. "Just in case," she would tell Billy. "So that I can hear you." 

And she did hear him, every single time. Sometimes, the dream wouldn't even be over before she slipped into his bedroom and laid beside him. He would wake up to her soft whispering: "Everything is okay. You're okay. I'm with you." She would never tell him that the nightmares weren't real, that they were _just goddamn dreams_ , the way his father did. She would simply tell him that it was okay. 

Billy cannot remember the last time he woke up with his mother's arms around him. He does not know if he outgrew the bad dreams or if she had decided that he was old enough to chase them away on his own. He doesn't even quite remember what all those awful dreams were about. But now, digging up all the memories that simple little note brought back, he thinks he can make a few guesses. He thinks he can remember loud shouting, the real kind that happened outside his bedroom door, following him to sleep. He thinks he recalls it growing louder, echoing in the dark recesses of his sleeping brain. He remembers it turning into monsters. He remembers the monsters having big, meaty fists and his father's angry voice. 

_Last night was the last straw_ , his mother had written. Her handwritten looked shaky and uncertain, and the note had been tucked into the sleeve of her favorite record. He cannot imagine that his father had ever read it - that his mother had actually given it to him. Had she been too afraid? Had she changed her mind? Billy is mulling this over, lost in his thoughts, when a knock at the window shocks him into focus. 

"He lives," Heather says, her voice muffled by the glass. Billy reaches across the passenger seat and nudges at the door. Heather swings it open all the way and drops into the seat. "Where were you last night?" Billy doesn't answer. He pulls a back of Marlboros from his pocket. He takes his lighter from a cupholder between them. "Carol's party?" Heather presses. 

"Don't know," Billy says around his cigarette. He rolls down his window and breathes a large puff of smoke outside.

"B.S.," Heather says. 

"I didn't feel like going," Billy says.

"You can tell the truth," Heather says.

"I am," Billy says. 

"Nicole's pissed," Heather says. "You totally stood her up." 

"Boo-hoo," Billy sighs, taking another long drag. 

"Don't be a dick," Heather says. She nudges him with her elbow, but frowns when he doesn't push back. "What's going on with you?" 

"Nothing," Billy says. 

"Don't lie," Heather says. Billy raises his chin and blows smoke up to the ceiling. It curls outward in a gray cloud. Wisps of it spill across the car and out Billy's open window. Heather waves her hand when some settles around her head. She rolls down her own window so that it can escape, muttering, "Gross." She coughs, and then she turns her attention back to Billy. "Do you want to go out tonight?" 

"What's tonight?" Billy asks.

"Harrington's house is open," Heather says. "Parents are out on some extended business trip or something." 

"Maybe," Billy says.

"Nicole's not going," Heather says. "If you don't want to face her."

"I don't care about her," Billy murmurs.

"Don't be a dick," Heather repeats. "You're going to apologize to her, right?"

"Heaths," Billy sighs.

"Billy," she sighs back. They are quiet. Billy smokes. Heather leans back in her seat. The Camaro is parked outside of Munro's Music. "Were you gonna go in?" Heather asks.

"What?" Billy asks.

"The record store," Heather says. 

"I don't know," Billy says.

"What's up with you?" Heather asks. 

"It's nothing," Billy says. 

" _It's nothing_ , like, it's really nothing?" Heather asks "Or _it's nothing_ , like, you don't want to talk about it?"

"Ding, ding, ding," Billy says flatly.

"Fine," Heather says. "I'll leave you to your brooding, then." Billy says nothing. Heather waits- one beat, then two. The radio crackles out Def Leppard at the lowest volume Heather thinks she's ever heard in this particular vehicle. Billy stays silent. "Okay," Heather sighs. She pushes the passenger door open and steps outside. She leans back into the car and tells Billy, "Harrington's. Eight o'clock, tonight. You should come." 

Billy mumbles something that could be a _maybe_ or could just be a _no_. Heather doesn't waste time trying to decipher it. She steps away, letting the door slam shut behind her, leaving Billy with his thoughts. 

* * *

"Are you," El asks, "okay?" 

They are sitting in Mel's Diner, a small burger joint that sits just across the street from the arcade. The boys have gone to break singles into change for the pinball machines, leaving El and Max at a large round table littered with straw wrappers and half-finished Cokes. Max has been relatively quiet this afternoon, and while the boys seemed too preoccupied with beating each other's Dig Dug scores to notice, Max's odd demeanor could never slip past Eleven. Her question shakes Max out of what looks like deep thought. She had been staring at the wall-length window across from them, looking out into the street. When El speaks, Max nearly jumps.

"Huh?" she asks, and then she says, "Oh. I'm fine." 

"Are you sure?" El asks. Max hesitates this time.

"I guess," she says. She thinks about the unopened card stuffed in her backpack, and the note in Billy's pocket. He had been distant this morning, and not in his usual way. He is normally gruff and loud; abrasive; impossible. This morning, though, something was bothering him. Something was wrong. Max sighs. "I don't know." 

"Do you want to talk about it?" El asks. 

Max considers this, and as she does the boys rush back with fistfuls of rattling change. They shout of their success to the girls as the bustle past the table toward the tiny bank of machines stuffed in the far corner of the diner. Max frowns. "Later," she tells Eleven. She bites her lip, then asks, "Can I stay at your place tonight?" Before El can answer, Max hurries to clarify, "I don't think Billy's coming home, and my mom's out of town. I don't know if Neil's coming home. I just don't want to be in an empty house."

"Max," El says carefully. "It's fine."

"Yeah?" Max asks.

"Promise," El says. Max squeezes her hand. On El's suggestion, they leave a few crumpled singles on the table and go to join the boys. 

* * *

Billy does go into the music store. He wanders it, seemingly aimless, poking through rows of cassette tapes until he remembers what he had gone in for. He picks the tape he wants, makes small talk with the cashier that smells like he's snuck a joint during his lunch break. Billy keeps the tape in his pocket as he drives out toward the quarry. On a Saturday, the place is milling with a few bored teenagers. He drives until they are all behind him, drives until he runs out of road. He parks at the edge of rocky cliff and, finally, takes the tape out of its plastic casing. He pops it into the radio, cutting off Freddie Mercury mid-belt. Silence rings for one second, and then two, before James Taylor replaces it. 

When Billy's mother had left, his father had told him, "She ran off on you." He had told Billy, "She never did want you." He had said, "She left because of you," Billy had not believed this at first; he couldn't, as long as his mother was still calling, still saying that she would come back but that she couldn't say when. Once the calls stopped coming, his father's voice rang louder in his ears. "She's not coming back," his father had told him. "She abandoned you," he said, and Billy had believed him, then. He had no other explanation. His mother hated him, plain and simple. It was the only thing that made sense - even though it didn't, really, make a whole lot of it. 

_We can't stay here anymore_ , his mother's note had said. We. A simple two-letter word, scratched out in his mother's handwriting. _We can't stay here anymore_. 

One of them was lying. Unless the "we" that his mother wrote about did not include Billy, one of them was lying. Either there is a lie, or she had changed her mind between when she wrote that note and when she finally, really left. Billy takes the note out of his pocket. He unfolds it. His finger traces over that single line. _We can't stay here anymore. We can't stay here. We._ We. We. 

* * *

"You found this," El says carefully, "in a record sleeve?"

They are in Eleven's bedroom. Hopper had picked them up and made no arguments when they asked for a sleepover. They had a quiet dinner, then retreating into El's room. Through the wall, an old cop show plays on the television. Sometimes, they hear Hopper interject with his own commentary; that is, until they hear him snoring in his chair. El sits cross-legged on her bed. She is holding the sealed-up card, turning it over in her hands, handling it like it is made of glass. Her small fingers light over the delicate letters written in a dark ink. She flips it over and touches the stuck-down flap, then turns it over again and sweeps her thumb over the stamp with the little red bird on it. She looks up at Max. 

"In one of Billy's records," Max says. "Yeah."

"You're sure," El says, "that it's Billy's?"

"The record?" Max asks, and El nods. "No," Max admits. "I mean, the records were boxed up with his stuff when we moved. Neil never touches them. Billy doesn't either."

"But they were out when you got home?"

"All over the floor," Max says.

"And Billy was-"

"-in his room," Max says. 

"Reading the note," El finishes.

"And he was acting weird today," Max says. "Like, not his normal weird." 

"What kind of weird?" El asks.

"Like," Max starts. "He was," she tries. "He wasn't himself."

"What does that mean?"

Max had been pacing as she talked, but now she drops onto the bed beside Eleven. "Something's bothering him," she says. "He was quiet. He wasn't yelling like usual. He wasn't...mean. Do you know what I mean?" 

"Billy not being mean," El reasons out, "is a problem?"

"I know him," Max says. El doesn't argue this. She has been around Billy and Max enough times to understand their dynamic. 

"You think this has something to do with it," El says, displaying the envelope. 

"I don't think he's seen it yet," Max says. "But I think that's his mom's name. Leigh Hargrove. I think the records are hers. That's why Billy keeps them." 

"And Margaret Boland?" El asks, sounding out the name slowly.

"I don't know who she is," Max says.

"But Billy might?" El asks.

"If his mom knew her," Max says, "maybe Billy does, too."

"You should show this to Billy," El says.

"I don't want to piss him off," Max admits.

"I can go with you," El offers. 

"Can you find him?" Max asks. El is quiet for a moment, contemplating. Then, she nods toward her dresser, where a small radio sits perched among a mess of hair scrunchies and folded notes from Mike. Max stands and begins to fiddle with the radio's plastic knobs. El reaches beneath her bed and pulls out a strip of cloth, which she ties around her head. The low hum of radio static fills the room. Eleven sits with her legs folded, her hands on her knees, silently. Max waits. The seconds stretch on. A minute passes by, and then another. Max can just hear Eleven's alarm clock softly ticking beneath the radio's crackling. A small drip of blood falls from El's nose. She takes off the blindfold. "Where is he?" Max asks.

"He's driving," El says. "Mel-" she tries, then shakes her head. "Mulberry Lane." 

"Steve's house?" Max asks. Eleven shrugs her shoulders. 

"Do you want to go?" El asks her. She does not need an answer. Max is already opening the window. 


End file.
